Telecommunications services are becoming more sophisticated and more commonplace. Many telecommunications services are based upon the transmission of voice and/or data. When such services are purchased, the installation of a variety of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) may be required. The CPE is provided and/or installed at a customer location, for example, a home, office, and/or place of business, often by a technician hired or contracted by the company providing telecommunications services.
A technician often travels to an installation site to provide and/or install the CPE needed to provide the services purchased and/or ordered. As such, a technician often needs to have access to a varied assortment of CPE's and/or accessories. Technicians often travel to the installation site in a vehicle such as, for example, a van, pickup truck, or commercial vehicle, and stock the vehicle with the supplies needed for a time frame, for example, that day, that week, or the like. While installing the requested telecommunications services, technicians often upsell additional products and/or services to the customers. As such, technicians often stock their vehicles with additional supplies, e.g., CPE's and/or accessories. If a customer is interested in the additional products and/or services, the technician can find the needed CPE's and/or CPE accessories in the vehicle and provide the additional products and/or services.
It is possible, however, that a technician provides a first customer with a CPE for an upsold product and/or service, and then experiences a shortage of the CPE at an installation site of a second customer. If the technician is far away from a supply point, e.g., a garage, a warehouse, or other facility, and encounters such an inventory shortage, the technician may need to travel to the supply point to get the necessary CPE's and/or accessories to complete a job assignment. In such circumstances, the technician may miss the appointment window while driving to and/or from the supply point.
In some inventory management models, dispatch center staffing and systems primarily manage inventory for technicians. Technology deployment and improvement are primarily directed to improving operational efficiencies to create an effective dispatch management mechanism. Based on the overall workload for any particular time period, dispatch center staff adjust technician assignments.
Technicians occasionally communicate with dispatch center staff and/or systems, but such communications are generally directed to reporting a job status, conducting end-to-end testing, remotely resetting firmware and/or user profiles, managing assigned network resources, combinations thereof, and the like. Communication between technicians is generally limited to informal means, for example, a technician maintaining a private contact list through which the technician may contact another technician for assistance, when needed.